Nokia back in business

In recent years, Nokia has endured what could euphemistically be described as “a bit of a ’mare”. While Google and Apple carved up the hi-tech smartphone market, Nokia became the sleeping giant. Well, the counter attack starts here.

The N9 is the world’s first ‘pure touchscreen’ — you’ll notice there are no front-facing buttons — and thus looks so incredibly sleek it resembles a Pixar-style computer-generated object. It’s due out later this year, with a Windows-powered version rumoured to follow soon after.

ESSENTIAL FEATURES

The N9 has a curved, 3.9in Gorilla Glass display, while the polycarbonate body enables superior antennae performance, resulting in less dropped calls.

There’s no ‘home’ button. Instead, you can quit an app or return to the home screen by swiping inwards from any side of the screen. A double-tap unlocks the phone.

It’s packed with productivity-boosting functions such as the copy-and-paste: swipe back over a word to copy it and swipe forwards to paste it.

The powerful 8-megapixel camera with autofocus (you can also tap to focus) has Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash and a super-wide 28mm lens.